This invention relates generally to the decoration of cakes, cookies, hors d'oeuvres and other food items. More particularly, the invention is directed to a machine which applies semi-solid and/or liquid decorative materials in a pattern which may include an on-site video image and/or previously prepared materials in the form of drawings, fonts and other graphic and/or written material.
Various food items such as cakes, cookies, pastries and hors d'oeuvres are commonly decorated with icing, gel or liquid food coloring. For example, cakes are often decorated on their top surfaces with written messages and/or pictorial matter. At present, bakeries and the bakery departments of supermarkets employ decorators who manually apply the decorative materials to the cake. The labor costs involved in this conventional cake decoration procedure are substantial, in part because of the considerable amount of time that is required and in part because the cake decorators are relatively highly skilled and expensive personnel.
Another drawback with the manual cake decorating procedure is that the finished product is wholly dependent upon the skill of the cake decorator. As a consequence, the quality can vary widely depending upon the person doing the decorating and even among different cakes decorated by the same person. Even the most highly skilled and experienced cake decorators are unable to maintain consistently high quality and are limited in the types of designs and artwork they can use in the cake decoration.
Typically, a cake which is decorated according to the desires of a consumer must be ordered well in advance. Even then, the decorative choices are rather limited and the consumer must normally choose among a limited number of available patterns that are displayed in the bakery or bakery department. Therefore, the consumer is given little choice as to the decorative patterns that are possible, and he has little or no creative input as to the decoration of the cake or other food articles that are decorated.